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apr 17, 2026

A dear friend recently told me about some of their struggles, including suicidal thoughts.

In response, I opened some of my journals from years ago and found a passage buried in one entry:

There was context around it then, explanations and reasons, but this is what stands out to me now:

Every line is turned inward — not out of narcissism, but out of pain. Depression can narrow the world until the self is all that remains in view, and it is hard to recognize the people standing nearby when you are trying to find your way through a maze alone.

The way we speak to ourselves matters. The thoughts we rehearse often enough begin to sound like truth.

But somehow what I keep returning to as I keep reading from my own past writing is the last line:

I have read it over and over these last few days, wondering why I wrote whole instead of hole. Honestly, I don't remember writing it. I don't remember where I was, what I was doing, or even exactly how I felt. But reading it right now it feels like I was trying to tell myself something I would only understand much later. I know that when I wrote this, at the time, I knew it was true but didn't believe it — or at least I didn't want to. I wanted some other answer.

A hole is something you climb out of. To come out not whole is something else entirely — it means some part of you may not survive the climb. Some old self, some falsehood, some way of living, may have to be left behind.

I doubt the person who wrote those words years ago (me) would have listened to any advice I would give now. I doubt my friend would listen to advice either, because pain rarely makes room for advice. But maybe this much is true: sometimes the way out is not returning to who you were before. Sometimes the way out is simply becoming someone else.

phoenix, az